


Welcome Back?

by FawnoftheWoods



Series: Where the Hitter Is [5]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Episode Tag, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FawnoftheWoods/pseuds/FawnoftheWoods
Summary: After the 1st job, they split, agreeing that Nate would call them back when he found them a bad guy to steal from.  Eliot wasn't sure the call would ever come.  When it did, he wasn't sure he was ready for what it meant.2nd episode character study for Eliot





	Welcome Back?

**Author's Note:**

> This is almost stream of consciousness, just a warning

Berlin was a good city.  Eliot liked it as far as cities go.  He had used the 32 million to pay off most of his pursuers with money left to spare.  The job in Berlin was a favor.  

Also, he was bored.  Berlin was a good way to kill time by removing one of his many aggrieved coworkers.

When his phone rang, he nearly swore in relief.  He didn’t want to be doing favors anymore.  He wanted something more interesting.  Something like Hardison.

Besides he always enjoyed making people lose their concentration by mentioning their mother.  

000

“Don’t you trust us?”  

He really didn’t want to answer that, even if they were talking about money.  Parker, he could fool.  Hardison too, but Sophie would see through whatever quip or answer he tried to give.  

Speaking of Hardison, his painting was fucking weird.

Still his pride in the new computer system was cool.  And he had hockey.

Nate looked good.  Nate, the damn golden boy, millions to a children’s hospital looked energized.  Eliot knew his kids death wasn’t dealt with, but the donation to the hospital seems to have helped some.  The sense of purpose seems to have done more.

Eliot could tell he had found another bad guy to take down.  And Eliot had front row seat for the plan.  He could already feel his heart rate rise to the challenge.

At first, he wondered if the kid in the fatigues was their target.  He couldn’t’ve been more than 20, talking to his fiance in the film.  Eliot knew him.  He knew a lot of him.  Kids with dreams of serving for $7/day.  He had trained with them, served with them and in too many cases watched them die.  It wouldn’t be the first time he saw one go bad, but he was surprised to hope that the kid wasn’t their target.

Back when he first started as a hitter, going for a baby-faced soldier made his stomach turn.  His stomach didn’t even quiver anymore, but somehow, he was hoping they weren’t about to need to target a good soldier.

The sounds of the NATO rounds and the submachine gun filled the air, telling him it was not Insurgents.  5.56 rounds matched what he could see of the contractors and the 9 mm rounds would be the submachine gun.  Not long range either, close to the camera.

He could remember the first time he heard that sound.  They were trapped in a bunker.  The three of them hunkered down as the bullets tore through the grass tufts on the left.  Rogers leaned over to yank Gilers back in.

“ _ Those are fucking NATO rounds, you idiot!  You treat them like AK’s and you’ll be swiss cheese.” _

Then another round came from their right, slightly further off.  He heard Rogers swear.  

“ **_Those_ ** _ are AK-47.  Those are the damn natives we are here to roust.  If the damn Brits could stop tossing rounds at us!” _

Eliot remembered tasting the sweat on his lips as he committed the sound to memory.  He remembered the smell blood on Gilers uniform as he charged the insurgents so both the brits and Eliot and Rogers could move to pincer them.  Damn kid was dead before he landed.  The glare of the sun beat the sand into their face as Eliot took out their mission and then retreated, blowing up his comrade to remove all trace of their presence.  

Rogers was a good commander.  He’d introduced Eliot to Vance.  Taught Eliot a lot about staying alive.  Including the sound of different bullets hitting a body.

It was a very distinctive sound.

He’d be impressed that any of the soldiers made it out of the video alive.  Nate proves it when a moment later he states that the camera man is not only alive but their client.  

He agrees with the kid's report, the contractors shot them.  But this is a defense contractor.  He was the sole hitter against a private army.  He was only one fucking person.  He was good, but he wasn’t god!

He lets out a breath when he realized they were not attacking them directly.  He had to smile at Nate's gleeful grin when he explains how they are circumventing both the hitters and the lawyers.

“Corp Perry is lucky he doesn’t have lawyers, he has theives.”  

He also can’t stop the chuckle when he hears Nate see the painting.

000

The first move starts pretty normal.  He razzes Nate about the suit for show, he prefers being near the food.  Besides no one notices the wait staff.  It also give him the freedom to laugh at Parker’s interaction with Hardison.  

“Big Baby”

The kid is so gone on the pint-sized thief.  But he’d better watch it.  She’s still 20 lbs of crazy in a 5 lb bag.  

Besides the kid is so naive.  Seriously?  If Castleman’s plan for owning congress makes his stomach queasy, he really is in the wrong business.  Though he is handy.  The phone being able to do anything without Eliot needing to do something astounds him.

Parker’s needs for the voice lock is also astounding.  Only 10 sounds left.  Sophie’s done well in diversifying the conversation.  He rolls the sounds requested around in his head a few minutes.  He’s carrying appetizers, so that limits his food names, but he can get 8 of them with one appetizer, but he isn’t certain how to get “oo” or the “ef” afterwards.

He slows his approach as he shuffles the sounds again.  Whatever he says, won’t be what’s on the plate.  He’s pretty sure if he’s irritating enough he can get the idiot to swear at him so that deals with 3 of the sounds.  Pate d’escargot will hit many of them.  

He smiles, why not stick to french  The man is a pretentious bastard, he’ll use it even if he doesn’t know what it means.  He hopes Sophie either doesn’t know what he’s saying or will able to keep a straight face since the translation will be snail paste in Argentine beer.  

He also enjoys acting like a simpleton.  Especially since this is clearly not escargot.  Save him people who don’t understand food!

His attention shifts as Hardison talks about what they are finding.  He puts it together at the same time as Nate.  He loses the plates quickly as Sophie plays her hunch.  

He just knew they were going to have to deal with Castleman’s hitters.  

000

It was damn hospital, he couldn’t clear it fast enough.  There were too many doors.  Especially when a doctor stops him.  A doctor wearing soft, comfortable shoes.  

Back in Italy he had been part of security detail.  Not the rookie, but not high up either.  The rookie on the team called in an alert.  A couple had walked in that he didn’t liek the look of.  Eliot had listened as they were run through the database and cleared.  Them their team leader swung close and cleared them again.  The rookie swore they were not normal partiers.

Eliot shifted to see them, but the leader called him on it and cleared them from notice.  He sent the rookie out of the room.  

When the shooting was over, half the team injured, three dead, not including their target but including their team leader.  Eliot had cornered the rookie to ask.  He remembered what the rookie said.

“ _ My mom loved these events.  She would always tell me you could tell so much about someone’s shoes.  Whether they liked to dance, whether they cared more for looks or comfort, so many things.  In a place like this, with all these fancy things.  That lady was wearing shoes you could run in. _ ”

Eliot turned to see two military boots walk silently down the hospital hallway towards the elevators.  Worse, he saw Nate come into view on the other side.

He needed a distraction now!

Crashing into them had bought him time to separate them from their target.  The metal stand gave him space for the knives but dammit Marine knife moves were a bitch to avoid.

He had learned them from the ground up in special forces.  Vance had introduced him to Hadler, Ex-marine.  He was someone who believed you didn’t know something until you could do it and defend against it.  Eliot nearly lost a finger on that last part but he learned it well.

It was a very distinctive style.

Nate’s improv was interesting.  It was rare that a mark would help protect themselves without getting in his way.  He made sure both were down, at least temporarily before grabbing their go bag and joining Nate in the elevator, shielding the occupants from sight in case one got up again.

He needed Nate to understand that now they were going against that private army he had warned them about.  The way those guys had moved said force recon, or at least one of the marine special ops.

While he had meant to impress upon Nate the severity of what they were doing, he hadn’t intended on scaring the others.  It was true none of them actively hurt people.  That was actually the reason the first thing he did when he emptied the pilfered bag was disarm the gun.  These three weren’t fighters.  They didn’t have the blood of soldiers, let alone innocents on their hands.  This wasn’t new to him, but it was scaring them.

Nate’s dramatic statement balanced his levity nicely in bringing their focus back to the table.  Eliot knew, they couldn’t handle being the one hurting people though.  So he would have to be the one to do it.

But Nate was scaring them, they needed something to hold on to, an end in sight.  That could get you through the darkest fear.

000

“A man only ever looks a woman in the eye when he’s making the effort to lie to her.”

Eliot can't argue with that, as chauvinistic as that sounded.  Hardison’s agreement was funny as Parker seems to try to process that.  He would have to watch that behavior in himself.  Belatedly, he wondered how many other women noticed this.

Sophie’s levity helped a lot.  Eliot knew the value of a joke, especially since they were all so tense.  Both Sophie and Nate seemed to get it.

Parker and Hardison’s excitement at stealing a law was what kept him entertained while he messed with the congressman.  Canceling wood panels was fun.  Then he tracked down the countertops, which were some fancy granite and changed them to this nearly psychedelic swirly plastic. The cabinet knobs were changed from an ornate iron to Buggy the clown.

Of course, this all while he hears Hardison rocking Parker’s “sexiness”.  Poor kid was totally gone on her.

Eliot had to laugh at Parkers fun, “The Eagle has landed.”

And “Rich guys on the phone version of make-up sex”?  Hardison is a continuous quip artist.  Not that he’d tell him that.  He hopes the kid never takes himself too seriously.

When he grabs him and calls him Rambo, its not as hard as it usually is to keep himself from shrugging off the hand. It has to bee the first time someone has help him back with no interest in actually controlling him as much as to get his attention. Naturally Hardison has a computer fix to the camera he sees, but Eliot is so ready to hit something.  Plus it’s faster than the phone thing.

“I”m sorry its too far away for you to punch.”  Eliot’s breath almost caught in laughter as he dashed to the unit.

He’s got to admit, he was pretty amazed at the sheer amount of money.  Usually he’s looking at something with value beyond currency, but this was impressive.

It took nearly 20 minutes to have a break in the guards to sneak away.  He was starting to feel almost normal between the crazy of Hardison and Parker.  This feeling is enhanced as he watches Parker practically makes out with the cash.

000

It's funny when Nate reminds them that they aren’t keeping the money.  For a moment, all of them had dollar signs in their eyes.  Except Nate.  Eliot realized that having that money, showing Castleman up, that was his high.  When had that become Eliot’s high?

It wasn’t originally about the money.

Even with Damien, it wasn’t about the money.  No, he won’t think about _him_.  He will focus on Nate’s crazy ass plan that involves gun pointed at Hardison.  He makes sure he is in a position to be able to cover him if things sounded like they were going south.

But Hardison kept his cool.  His back and forth with Parker was light-hearted.  He picked up Nate and Sophie without any trouble.  THey were supposed to be in the back of the truck, but he didn’t like the lack of position.  He positioned himself under the chassy so that if something happened, he could back up Hardison.

He nearly came out when he heard the gun clock.  But HArdison, cool as you please, opened the container to show the magic trick.  They fell for it very well.  He could hear Hardison sending the video to every media cell phone number within a quarter mile.  It was hysterical as they watched the live new feed from the trusck where Hardison had pulled over a mile from the storage facility.

He was still smiling as they headed to St Francis Hospital.

000

Corp Perry was everything Eliot expected when he came wheeling out of the hospital.  The doctor’s skepticism was exactly as Nate had described it.  Hardison had no problem showing them the magic trick.  Eliot could help the warmth that grew in his chest as the team said, without prompting that this belonged to the people, the soldiers.  That it was for rehab for wounded soldiers.  No prompting, to reminding, no questioning, just a certainty that they deserved to be looked after.

He was proud to shake the man’s hand.  This man had experienced war, loss and hardship.  He had reached out and he had believed in what he was doing.  He wasn’t the kid on the film anymore.  He had earned Eliot’s respect.

His problem had pulled this crew back together.  For that, he had earned Eliot’s thanks.

He heard Nate’s parting comment to the Doctor.

“The world just doesn’t work this way.”

“So change the world.”

Somewhere, Eliot could hear a bright, young eighteen-year-old pump his hands as he salutes the flag, as he receives his first assignment.  His smile proud as he is told he is now serving his country, praying to god that he was good enough.  Before the loss hits.  Before the pain stabs.  Before the light dies.  He stands there proud of who and what he is.

“Anybody who wants to walk away, can do it right now.”

Eliot feels his smile drop as the image of the soldiers in front of him who didn’t have their soul striped from them shows him what he’s lost.  This family next to him.  Maybe for a while he can pretend.

“One more.”  Please, one more.

“Maybe two.”  Yes please.  For a little while he’d look for that young man in the mirror again.

He can watch Parker learn what a plant does.

He can watch Hardison flail around Parker.

He can watch Sophie tease Nate.

He can watch Nate hit his midlife crisis.

He can watch himself be the good guy.


End file.
